Kerri Walsh Jennings’ gold-medal strain snapped in semis

RIO DE JANEIRO — Kerri Walsh Jennings, one of a biggest players in beach volleyball history, won bullion award after bullion award after bullion medal, in a few flattering engaging Olympic settings.

Playing with then-partner Misty May-Treanor, Walsh Jennings won her initial bullion award during a 2004 Athens Olympics, where a announcer proudly told a rocking throng he would never complete a difference “Silence please!” She and May-Treanor won bullion again in Beijing in 2008, when they even had a use event with then-President George Bush. The span won a third bullion during London in 2012, when they played subsequent to a primary minister’s chateau during No. 10 Downing Street, and while Walsh Jennings was profound with her third child.

But personification during a glorious venue on a genuine beach during Copacabana, where a Brazilians have an huge passion for a sport, Walsh Jennings will not win a fourth bullion medal. Instead, she and personification partner Apr Ross will play for her initial bronze award after losing a two-set compare opposite Brazilians Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas.

Passing feeble and creation a series of mistakes, a Americans mislaid in true sets, 22-20 and 21-18. It was a initial detriment in any Olympic beach volleyball compare for Walsh Jennings (26-1).

“It was rocky,” Walsh Jennings pronounced of a match. “You have to pass a round to win matches, and we don’t know how many aces per diversion they got on me and that’s only unsuitable and inexcusable. I’ve been served [at] this whole contest aggressively and we rubbed it in each other situation, and it’s unequivocally unsatisfactory and distressing not to do it in this conditions tonight.

Brazil ends Walsh Jennings’ gold-medal run

“You can’t do anything but a pass. That’s what set a tinge and we never got a mojo together or anything else.”

Asked what it was like to kick Walsh Jennings, Bednarczuk responded: “It’s crazy! we don’t even comprehend what it means yet. After we finish a Olympic Games, we’ll consider about this since now we have to consider about a subsequent game.”

While Bednarczuk’s group plays for gold, Walsh Jennings and Ross will play Brazil’s Larissa Franca and Talita Antunes. Before a semifinal matches, many would have approaching those dual teams to play for a gold. Instead, one will settle for bronze and a other will get nothing.

Walsh Jennings and Ross became a group shortly after May-Treanor late following a London Olympics (she and Walsh Jennings had beaten Ross and her personification partner, Jen Kessy, in a gold-medal match). They were a favorite to win Tuesday after winning all their prior matches here and also carrying beaten Bednarczuk and Seixas in other tournaments.

“We could squish that team, and we have in a past,” Walsh Jennings said. “I contend that with so most honour for them — they’re very, really good. Tonight they rose to a occasion. we positively did not and there is no forgive for it. It was only terrible execution.”

With a packaged track chanting and cheering boisterously for their team, a Brazilians simply outplayed a Americans, creation gorgeous one-handed diving saves and unusual blocks while Walsh Jennings struggled to pass a ball. She and Ross pronounced they didn’t let a Brazilian fans get to them, that in fact, it was a good atmosphere in that to play. They only played next their common standard.

“I envisioned them entrance during me and envisioned them nailing each pass. we was only too discerning with a ball,” Walsh Jennings said. “I schooled this doctrine a tough way. Our coaches go over it many, many times. To not go to a finals of a Olympics Games is positively devastating.”

Walsh Jennings is 38 and will be 42 by a 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Asked either she can make it to those Games and try again for her fourth gold, she replied, “I know we can. we don’t know if we will. we wish to win my compare tomorrow and we wish to go home with a bronze medal.”

A bronze would be a initial for a beach volleyball legend. It only won’t be anywhere as special as a fourth gold.